Ye olde 日本語

As part of one of my Japanese classes I have to read an article, listen to someone give a presentation on it, and then ask questions about the contents of the article.

In this particular article I've hit a bit of a wall in my understanding. The title is called 日本人の時間意識. You can probably guess what it is about from the title, but within the article the author quotes from an old book called 農業全書 by 宮崎安貞 from the 元禄 era. As a result there are a lot of grammar constructs/words I'm not familiar with.

To start with, I have no idea what the ～をも form is. For example, 「天の時にしたがひ、一寸の光陰をも大切におしみて、農業に身を投げうち、心を用ること慎でおこたること なかれ」

My rough translation is something like "Be frugal with even the smallest amount of time, give your all into agriculture and be careful not to shirk your duties." From this translation my best guess for をも is にも.

I have no idea what 天の時にしたがひ could mean. My first thought was that したがひ is some old form of 従う but it still doesn't make sense.

I'm guessing おしみて comes from 惜しむ and is just an old version of the ～て form. For example, めぐりて also shows up in 「日月の天にめぐりて瞬する間も滞りたゆみなき理りを 目当として寸陰も怠るべからず」

It's probably not all that important for the assignment that I understand all of this older Japanese, but I find it interesting nevertheless. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Half-n-Half said:

My rough translation is something like "Be frugal with even the smallest amount of time, give your all into agriculture and be careful not to shirk your duties." From this translation my best guess for をも is にも.

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Abide by the changes of Heaven (observe and live according to nature), do not waste even a moment to commit your whole self to agriculture nor lapse from this commitment by devoting your heart in it.

My two yen...

Half-n-Half said:

In this particular article I've hit a bit of a wall in my understanding. The title is called 日本人の時間意識. You can probably guess what it is about from the title, but within the article the author quotes from an old book called 農業全書 by 宮崎安貞 from the 元禄 era. As a result there are a lot of grammar constructs/words I'm not familiar with.

To start with, I have no idea what the ～をも form is. For example, 「天の時にしたがひ、一寸の光陰をも大切におしみて、農業に身を投げうち、心を用ること慎でおこたること なかれ」

My rough translation is something like "Be frugal with even the smallest amount of time, give your all into agriculture and be careful not to shirk your duties." From this translation my best guess for をも is にも.

I have no idea what 天の時にしたがひ could mean. My first thought was that したがひ is some old form of 従う but it still doesn't make sense.

I'm guessing おしみて comes from 惜しむ and is just an old version of the ～て form. For example, めぐりて also shows up in 「日月の天にめぐりて瞬する間も滞りたゆみなき理りを 目当として寸陰も怠るべからず」

Click to expand...

Ah, it is difficult even for a native speaker of Japanese! But I think you got most of it right!

をも - も is to emphasize, maybe similar to さえ (even).

したがひ - traditional way of writing, in modern Japanese it is したがい（従い）.
I could be wrong, but 天の時にしたがひ means something like "to follow the time (that the heaven shows/indicates, etc.)" or it could simply means to follow the time shown by the sun in the sky.

おしみて - old conjugation, same as めぐりて as you guessed, which is 惜しんで in modern Japanese.

Your "two yen" are like two gold doubloons to me. Thanks for the help! So was I right in understanding that したがひ is just 従う?

EDIT: Undrentide answered my question, never mind